Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to transceiver systems capable of operating with millimeter waves and capable of issuing and receiving signals from devices arranged at distances greater than one meter, for example, on the order of 10 meters.
Description of the Related Art
In a system operating with millimeter waves, for example, at a frequency on the order of 60 GHz, the available powers are such that antenna arrays providing directional beams, often called phased arrays, have to be provided. In such arrays, each antenna transmits a signal which is phase-shifted with respect to that of the other antennas, or is capable of receiving a signal which is phase-shifted with respect to that of the other antennas.
At 60 GHz, the wavelength in air is 5 mm. The largest dimension of antennas currently is on the order of half the wavelength, that is, 2.5 mm, and each antenna is separated from the surrounding antennas by a distance at least of the same order of magnitude.
Accordingly, it is in practice impossible to arrange the antenna array on an integrated circuit chip which contains electronic circuits capable of providing, receiving, processing, and amplifying the high-frequency signals of the antennas. This would indeed result in prohibitive chip dimensions.
Known devices have often used antennas assembled on individual substrates inserted in a ceramic block, also intended to receive the integrated processing circuit. This makes the system relatively complex, all the more as the track lengths between each of the elements should be made the shortest possible to avoid stray radiations and interferences. Further, some of those systems force the card manufacturer to provide relatively complicated devices to reprocess the transmitted/received signals.